What makes Iran so secure against a successful invasion?

[Patroklos]

Funny how well it worked in Vietnam.

Funny, I remember troops on the ground in Vietnam and a power trying to annex another.

As Ted so unaptly put it..

pwned

More of a self pawn actually.

[lightblue]

Iran has a fairly decent airforce from what I can see, more so than Iraq had after the sanctions at any rate. The Russians have been selling SU-25, SU-27 and Mig 31s to them. That alone might ake it harder in a onventional war, aside from the already mentioned more difficult terrain not lending itself to fast and broad movement of troops, but rather troops having to funnel through mountain passes and the like which would be prime amush territory.

[Patroklos]

Iran has a fairly decent airforce from what I can see, more so than Iraq

More so than Iraq (today) is not really saying much, and it would be gone in the first few days of any war.

That being said, it is important to realize that a conflict with Iran would be a "real" war, as perception would have it. It would require resource building on the scale of Gulf War I or greater, even if the make up of that force is different.

Iraq also had a far more robust Airforce than Iran has now in Gulf War I, and it did then absolutely no good.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Berzerker

I stand corrected (although I didn't mention Afghanistan), I'm not sure how much of what is now Iran was under Ottoman control or influence. It looks like they were limited to the NW where Iran meets up with Iraq.

That was an independent nonOttoman Turkish group which occupied the northwestern portion of Iran during the 14th and 15th century. There were several successive invasions of Turkish people from central Asia to Greek, Kurdish, and Persian lands at that time.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Funny how well it worked in Vietnam.

we won every single battle in Vietnam.

[Jaakko]

Originally posted by Dis


we won every single battle in Vietnam.

The point was that atrocity never breaks a nation's spirit of resistance.

It's really incredible and rather distasteful that so many today harbour such delusions that killing many people in itself is some sort of a success. It's not. It's slaughter, or maybe murder.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Jaakko

The point was that atrocity never breaks a nation's spirit of resistance.

Oh yes they do. At least sometimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Insurgency

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Jaakko


The point was that atrocity never breaks a nation's spirit of resistance.

It's really incredible and rather distasteful that so many today harbour such delusions that killing many people in itself is some sort of a success. It's not. It's slaughter, or maybe murder.

We'd be more after their infrastructure than their population.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Persia was never part of the Ottoman empire.

Tabriz in the Northwest was briefly ruled the Ottomans, in the late 16th C IIUC. After the fall of the Timurid dynasty, various Turkish groups competed for power in Northern Iran, including the Aq koyonlu (the white sheep Turks) and the Qara koyonlu (the black sheep Turks) - neither were Ottomans. The Savafid arose and led what was more or less a Shiite jihad against the Ottomans - there were rebellions in Anatolia, various betrayals and counter betrayals by vassals. for at least one point the Ottomans held Tabriz and tried to expand further, but had difficulties operating east of the mountain barrier.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Jaakko


The point was that atrocity never breaks a nation's spirit of resistance.

Yes, and that fact is our main hope for defeating the Mullahs.

[lord of the mark]

The Iran problem.

lets go back to 2002. Gen Eric Shinseki, US Army Chief of Staff, said we'd need several hundred thousand troops to occupy Iraq. He based this on experience in Bosnia and Kosovo, and extrapolated up based on population. Rummy dismissed this, insisting the war could be won with fewer troops. Rummy went ahead with 150,000 troops, and brilliantly beat the Iraqi army.

well, we've now got 138,000 troops there, and have finally reached somewhere over 100,000 effective Iraqi forces, and we're only finally beginning to get the country under control. So it turns out that Shinseki was right all along.

Now Iran has what, more than double the population of Iraq. Occupying it would, therefore take well over 500,000 ground troops.

Case closed.

Now IF the Iranians welcomed us with flowers and candy that would be another thing. But given the nationalism of the Iranians, i think an invasion would reduce the numbers who would welcome us with flower and candy to 10% of the population or less.

None of which is inconsistent with my belief that if we DONT invade, the Iranian people may well rebel against the theocratic regime.

[lord of the mark]

to extend the Iraq - Iran comparison. Both are multiethnic countries. However the core ruling group of Saddams Iraq, the Sunni Arabs, make up less than 25% of the population of Iraq. Farsi speaking Shiites make up well over 50% of the population of Iran. Even discounting for firmly secularist Farsis who might support us anyway, the core who would like resist an occupation force would likely represent a LARGER portion of the population of Iran than of Iraq. Which makes the situation even worse than a comparison of populations.

Did I say 500,000? Make it close to 800,000.

[GePap]

How hard a fight it is is based simply on how hard the other side fights as well. All the fnacy toys in an arsenal don;t overcopme the simple guy with a machine gun in some cave willing to fight to the death. Again, air power is overrated byu many posters here. Someone could be 10 yards from where a 2000 lb. bomb hits and still be able to fight, specially in unever terrain.

Iraq was so simple simply ebcause the Iraqi army crumbled and rarely put up a fight. Imagine what just two dividions could have done if they dug themselves in deep in baghdad- the city would have been flattened to get them out, but they would have extended the conventional phase of the war b many weeks.

Very simply put, Iraq phase one was easy cause the Iraqi army gave up. The Iranian army would probably not give up as easily, ad the paramilitary and security forces would put up a nasty fight- since these forces are muchy bigger than Iraq's forces, and the terrain is more favorable to the defenders, Iran would be a far more dangerous fight.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Dis


we won every single battle in Vietnam.

I'm sure we've won everyone in Iraq too.

[Dis]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
The Iran problem.

lets go back to 2002. Gen Eric Shinseki, US Army Chief of Staff, said we'd need several hundred thousand troops to occupy Iraq. He based this on experience in Bosnia and Kosovo, and extrapolated up based on population. Rummy dismissed this, insisting the war could be won with fewer troops. Rummy went ahead with 150,000 troops, and brilliantly beat the Iraqi army.

well, we've now got 138,000 troops there, and have finally reached somewhere over 100,000 effective Iraqi forces, and we're only finally beginning to get the country under control. So it turns out that Shinseki was right all along.

Now Iran has what, more than double the population of Iraq. Occupying it would, therefore take well over 500,000 ground troops.

Case closed.

Now IF the Iranians welcomed us with flowers and candy that would be another thing. But given the nationalism of the Iranians, i think an invasion would reduce the numbers who would welcome us with flower and candy to 10% of the population or less.

None of which is inconsistent with my belief that if we DONT invade, the Iranian people may well rebel against the theocratic regime.

we could get over 500,000 troops.

Time to reinstate the draft.